


A House on Stilts

by Boyvoids



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Canonical Child Abuse, Gen, Guardian Severus Snape, M/M, Severitus | Severus Snape is Harry Potter's Parent, Severus Snape Adopts Harry Potter, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:54:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24881140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boyvoids/pseuds/Boyvoids
Summary: Every summer, Snape takes Harry to the ocean. It’s strange how much kindness can hurt when it reveals what you’ve been missing.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Harry Potter & Severus Snape, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley
Comments: 55
Kudos: 539





	A House on Stilts

_“My brother once showed me a piece of quartz that contained, he said, some trapped water older than all the seas in our world. He held it up to my ear. “Listen,” he said, “life and no escape.”_

_-_ Anne Carson

* * *

Every summer, Snape takes Harry to the ocean. 

Harry’s not even sure where it is, somewhere in the Americas, and there’s hardly enough of a population to call it Muggle or Wizard. Snape portkeys them right to their little house on stilts on the beach, and they exist away from people for a little while.

The first summer, Harry doesn’t know what to do with himself.

“Go. Walk the beach. Pick up shells. Chase crabs. Be a bloody kid,” Snape snaps when Harry asks what he’s meant to do. Snape’s face is dark with frustration and irritation and makes Harry want to apologize, thank him, and run away all at once. He hasn’t gotten used to Snape’s unfathomable looks yet, but most of the time he knows that the anger and such isn’t for him, but at his life.

So he carries himself down to the waves, his thin legs struggling against the sand. He’s never been to a beach before; anytime his family— _the Dursleys_ , he tells himself, _not family anymore, just the Dursleys_ —went on vacation, they left him in his cupboard or with Mrs. Figg. If he closes his eyes, the waves sound like a thunderstorm, crashing and rolling. For a while, he lays on the warm sand and lets the waves pull at his feet, imagining that he is being carried away to somewhere wonderful.

He finds some shells that look nice—he likes the small, smooth pale blue ones the best—and pockets them. It must be okay to take them; there are thousands, and no one is around to yell at him. He only feels slightly guilty about it.

He walks until his legs tremble underneath him, and then he turns around and walks back. He doesn’t meet a single person along the way, even though there are plenty of other stilt-houses around.

By the time he gets home, Snape has bread and salad on the table, and there’s a soup simmering on the stovetop. Harry expects to be scolded or punished for being late to lunch, but Snape just looks up and gives a small, tiny half-smile that he almost misses before it disappears.

“Did you have fun?” the man asks.

“Er. Yes, sir,” Harry says softly.

The man frowns. Harry should have known he wasn’t supposed to have fun. “Sorry,” he says meekly.

Snape waves his hand in dismissal. “Sit,” he said. “You must be starving.”

Harry isn’t, and is glad for it. He never goes hungry that summer.

Instead, he learns to keep a vegetable garden instead of flowers. He learns chess—Snape has no mercy and once even handily destroys him after just four moves. He scours through the various books Snape keeps on his shelves—everything from magical botany to Pureblood etiquette to Dark Arts that Snape warns him will rot his organs from the inside out if he tries them. Snape lets Harry read whatever book he picks out, no matter how dangerous they are, which Harry is not sure is really advisable considering he’s barely twelve, but appreciates, nonetheless. After finding Harry’s stash of shells, Snape reminds him that it’s completely okay to borrow beautiful things from the world around them, and gives him a set of jars to keep them in. Harry starts a collection in his room, and a few of the prettier shells make their way to the windowsills in the kitchen and sitting room, too.

Overall, his summer isn’t bad at all. Snape isn’t bad, either. But by the time September 1st rolls around and they load up their trunks for Hogwarts, Harry still hasn’t stopped wondering why the man bothered to take him in in the first place.

Afterall, Snape didn’t _have_ to adopt him. Professor Dumbledore was very clear about that.

“You will always have a place with your aunt and uncle,” he said, over and over, at the end of first year. “We can ensure our safety and health there, my boy. No situation is too dire that a little communication cannot help. I am sure if I spoke to them, then—”

But Snape had interrupted. “Then they would smile and pretend all is well until the moment you left, Headmaster,” he had half-yelled in frustration. “The boy cannot go back there.”

“But, Severus—”

“I want to live with Professor Snape,” Harry had said, not quite believing himself even as he spoke. “I don’t want to go back there. Please.”

And Dumbledore had sighed and looked at Harry for a very long time with sad, weary eyes, until Harry looked away. “Very well, my boy,” he said at last. “I will see what we can do.”

But Snape didn’t _have_ to adopt him, and after every screaming nightmare or anxiety attack, he would remember that and wonder, when will be the last straw?

“I want to,” Snape had explained time and time again, waiting patiently as Harry cried himself out. “Is that enough?”

And it is, even if Harry’s mind keeps him up late at night running through all the reasons Snape would stop wanting to, would change his mind, would throw him out. It will take time for him to realize fully what it means to be loved.

* * *

After second year, Harry’s legs are stronger. He greets the ocean with a hesitant joy. He fills his bedroom at the house on stilts with all sorts of shells, big and small and flat and twisting. He makes clumsy sketches of the seagulls and herons that Snape preserves with a charm and frames.

“Do you want to talk about the chamber?” Snape will ask at least once a week, and Harry will shake his head. Snape will frown like he always does, but let it pass. “You can always come to me,” he reminds Harry. “If you need anything, you can ask.”

But Harry still hasn’t forgotten his decade of slaps and yells and pinches for asking even the simplest questions, so he thanks the man and slips back away to the ocean. The dreams of his uncle mix with the dreams of Tom Riddle and a hissing basilisk. He watches the wound on his arm where the fang pierced him slowly heal into a bubbly scar. Even with the phoenix’s tears, there’s still a mark. Harry can’t help but compare it to the scars from his uncle, and wonders if he is destined to have scars from every person that wants to hurt him. A walking history of his own suffering.

Before they go back for Harry’s third year, Snape sits him down and tells him everything he knows about Sirius Black. Harry is grateful to have at least one person looking out for him and has plenty of time to process his rage and grief that his parents were killed, betrayed, taken by one of their best friends.

By the time he meets Sirius face-to-face, he’s calm enough to listen and to understand. After all, Sirius had snuck into Gryffindor tower, not Slytherin; if he had really wanted to kill him, Harry reckons he would’ve done some better research.

And even though Harry is a Slytherin and not exactly the boisterous, adventurous James replica that he expects, Sirius Black still offers Harry a house to stay in. It is quite a nice gesture, and Harry feels a little sad when he apologizes and tells him he already has a home he’s more or less happy with.

“With who?” Black sputters as they make their way up to the castle, Pettigrew safely ensnared and Lupin blissfully unaware of everything under the influence of Wolfsbane in his office.

“Professor Snape,” Harry says lightly. “I’m not supposed to talk about it a lot though, because he says it will ruin his image.”

Black stares, and makes a noise that is half snort, half snarl.

“I s’pose I should’ve gotten out sooner,” he says finally. “Sorry, Harry.”

Harry thinks it is nice that two whole people care enough about him to want to live with him, and he tells Black so. Black makes the same noise again.

“I’m going to kill the Dursleys,” he says finally. “Lily always complained about her sister. I should’ve known; I should’ve—”

“It’s dangerous to fixate on our unfixable pasts,” Harry says. “That’s what Snape always says. We have to forgive ourselves, or we’ll never be able to do better. Or something.”

“That’s what he tells you?” Black asks incredulously. “ _Snape?_ ”

Harry, who is used to Snape’s long lectures on everything from revenge to cauldron bottom thickness, doesn’t understand why this was so surprising.

“We just knew each other as kids, that’s all,” Black mutters, staring angrily at the squeaking rat in his hand. “He was never so pragmatic or, uh, human back then.”

Harry just shrugs. He’s heard all about Snape and the Marauders, and he reckons they all had their own immaturities to deal with. “Either way, you probably shouldn’t kill the Dursleys. Snape says even he’s not allowed to, and he knows how to do it without getting caught.”

There is a silence that can’t honestly be described as comfortable, but Harry has two summers’ worth of long, silent walks, so he doesn’t mind.

“Where do you live, anyway?” Black finally asks. “Spinner’s End?”

“No, not there,” Harry says. “He says that’s not a place fit for emotionally-naïve adolescents. We live by the ocean somewhere. It’s very pretty.”

The headmaster is very surprised when Sirius Black knocks on his door with a frantic rat in hand. Harry escapes his third year unscathed, and with a new set of godparents: Remus and Sirius.

* * *

Harry didn’t realize until he got to Hogwarts that children weren’t meant to live in cupboards. He understood that all the other children were different, of course—they deserved nice beds and blankets and pillows to sink into—but he’d always thought that there were more kids like him, kids who were second-best, given the scraps that the good kids didn’t want anymore.

Ron Weasley showed him different, though.

They met on the train. Harry had tried to ignore him and hide away, but Ron kept pushing, strong and friendly and more courageous than Harry ever thought he could be.

Ron had five older brothers, one younger sister, and two very overworked parents. Despite that, he was assured in his love for his family and their love for him. He’d never gone hungry or been shoved in a cupboard. Even though the Dursleys were far wealthier, far more privileged in almost every aspect, the Weasley family had plenty of love to share, not only for their children but for everyone else, too. For Harry, too.

When Harry was sorted into Slytherin and separated from Ron, he was sure that was the end of it. Why would anyone work any harder than they had to, to be his friend? But Ron stuck by his side and didn’t give up until Harry got it through his head that he had a friend, whether he thought he deserved one or not.

When Mrs. Weasley sent him a sweater on his first real Christmas—his first holiday spent not in a lonesome cupboard with spiders and socks as gifts—Harry hid away in the empty Slytherin dorm for hours, having a good cry and experiencing the baffling, world-changing realization that he was wanted.

It’s strange how much kindness can hurt when it reveals what you’ve been missing.

* * *

The summer before fourth year is genuinely very pleasant. Nothing so traumatic happened over the last nine months that Harry feels like he’s recovering from it, so instead he finishes all his homework early and spends the rest of the summer gallivanting around. He thrives on letters from his friends, Remus, a freshly liberated Sirius, and, surprisingly, Draco. He starts collecting bird feathers and Snape drags out an old box full of embroidery thread; Harry ties them together clumsily and makes a tapestry they hang on one wall of the sitting room. The old house is starting to look like a home.

Harry leaves the house on stilts for a few weeks to visit Ron and go to the Quidditch World Cup. Snape very adamantly does _not_ go, even though Mr. Weasley is kind enough to extend the invitation.

“I see enough foolish idiots flying around on brooms at school, thank you,” he sneers, and Harry ducks his head to hide a laugh.

And then a lot of things happen all at once. Harry loses his wand to a house elf He learns what death eaters are, learns about torture, and learns that Draco Malfoy is very good at pretending to be a bastard. It’s a shame; Harry quite liked him in private.

Harry relays all this to a very worried Snape, who flutters anxiously around Harry like he wants to touch him, protect him, lock him up in a cupboard not out of anger but for his own safety. Instead, he starts Harry on a grueling lesson plan of defense, poison-detection, and occlumency. The day-in, day-out walks on the beach turn to hours sweating and coated with sand as they duel each other in the yard, hours pouring over books not revised since the 1500s, hours creating labyrinths and gardens and underwater caves in his mind while Snape tries to sneak in and ferry out his worst memories.

“Can we just _stop_?” Harry asks on the second week of this, lying flat on his back and spitting sand out of his mouth. The sun is bright overhead. “It’s not like he’s going to use a leg-locker jinx on me or anything; he’ll just cast a killing curse and get it over with. So, no matter what, I’m screwed.”

Snape stares at Harry with utter malevolence, and he couldn’t help but cringe.

“The Dark Lord,” Snape says, “Will not want to end you quickly, Potter. He wants revenge. He wants to nail your head to a stake and hang your body off the side of his castle so passersby can see what happens to foolish boys like you. When he returns, you will be the first step in securing his position in society. With you tortured, brainwashed, mutilated, or whatever else he decides fit, the Dark Lord will have regained his stature in the eyes of his followers and those who fear him.” He spits the words, breathing hard, and then strides toward Harry and offers him a hand.

“You say _when,_ ” Harry grunts, heaving himself to his feet with Snape’s help. “As if there’s no chance he won’t return. How do you know?”

Snape pulls back his sleeve, revealing a dark and gruesome snake, twisting across his flesh.

“This is how I know,” he says quietly. “Every day, it grows darker. Every day, it aches a little stronger. His return is inevitable, Harry. All I can do is prepare you.”

Later, when Snape is reading by the fire and Harry is sitting in his favorite armchair, legs pulled up under him as he doodles, Harry risks the question.

“When he comes back, are you gonna spy again?”

He doesn’t know what answer he expects or what answer he wants. It would kill him to watch Snape don the mask and cloak he saw the death eaters wear at the World Cup, but he can’t imagine Snape proclaiming his love for the light and abandoning his glowering, evil persona. Not only would it be risky and potentially a death wish, but Harry can’t imagine Snape ever admitting the fact that he’s nice to anyone.

“I will do what the Headmaster seems fit,” Snape says.

“But—”

“That is all that I know, and all that I will tell you.”

Harry sighs, and sinks further into his pillow and blanket nest.

“I just want you to be safe,” he mutters after a while. “You keep trying to protect me? Well, same. You’re not allowed to die on me.” _Not like the others,_ he adds silently.

Snape must have heard the silent bit because he stares at Harry and looks vaguely nauseous. His hair is down and falling over his face, shadowing his eyes, but Harry can still see the overwhelming concern present there, until it’s too much to look at and he turns away.

“I will do my best,” Snape says finally. “Whatever comes our way, I shall endeavor to stay alive, if only so that someone is around to make you do your homework. Ms. Granger seems to be slacking lately.”

“Hey! I can do my work without supervision.”

Snape crooks an eyebrow as if to say, _really?_ Harry sticks out his tongue.

They move on and pretend that everything is normal.

* * *

When Harry’s name is pulled from the Goblet of Fire, Snape is the most adamant that he does not compete in the tournament.

“Obviously, Potter has decided that competing in the Tournament is the next step in his bid for international fame and popularity,” Snape sneers. “Surely, we should not enable his growing ego. I fear that in mere moments, his head will fall right off his neck.”

But his voice is overridden by Dumbledore and Crouch and the rules, the dreaded rules, and Harry is set to face a triad of dangerous tasks he was never interested in in the first place.

“I don’t want this, Snape,” he whispers desperately after the next Potions class. Snape is still adamant that no one knows the extent of their relationship; beyond Ron, Hermione, Remus, Sirius, and Dumbledore, no one else knows that Snape has been Harry’s guardian since the end of first year. “I can’t do this. I’m going to fail.”

“Then fail,” Snape says, pretending to read Harry’s essay that he’s submitting for review while grasping Harry’s hand beneath the parchment. “Don’t do anything. Sit on the edge of the arena and wait until the spectators grow bored. Don’t put yourself at risk, Harry—someone else is already trying to hurt you enough as it is.”

So Harry scrapes through the first and second task by being as boring as possible. He stands as far away from the dragon as possible and waits for Bagman’s tired voice to ask for him to kindly leave the arena. He skips rocks in the lake much to the amusement of his friends and the exhaustion of the judges. Ron is still held hostage underwater, but because Harry never bothered to listen to the egg, he doesn’t have a chance to wonder if Ron will actually die if he doesn’t do anything. He only feels mildly guilty once he realizes there are people down there at the bottom of the lake, but _hey,_ he never learned to swim anyway. All that time at the ocean, and he'd never stepped fully into it.

The third task comes along, and the maze is set up so that Harry has no choice but to run away from the enclosing hedges. He fights as little as possible, tries not to move forward unless he has to, but the jinxes and the creatures and the weird, winding magic of the maze push him further and further in until _there,_ he sees the cup.

And wouldn’t it be so easy, to grab it and be done? Everything would be over. He could win, and the media would have a field day, and he could nick some hot cocoa from the kitchens and go to bed early.

So he grabs the cup.

* * *

After Harry killed Quirrel in first year—Dumbledore insisted it was Voldemort, but Harry knows what he did, he felt his hands and the burning, rotten flesh of Quirrel’s body—he woke up in the hospital wing to Snape sitting at his bedside.

Pain, grief, and guilt warred inside of him, but they were all doused by the warm, tentative feeling in his chest at the sight of his head of house waiting for him to wake up. The feeling was something like hope, and it sounded like an echoing voice, saying _tell him. Trust him. Tell him._

“I don’t want to go back to my aunt’s house,” Harry blurted out before Snape had a chance to say anything. “Please, sir. I can’t go back.”

He didn’t have any bruises to show to Snape—they'd long since faded away—and the few scars he had from various 'accidents' were nondescript enough as to be indistinguishable from regular childhood scars. He didn’t have any _proof,_ only stories of an unloved boy hiding in a cupboard, forced to do endless chores with no reprieve, ridiculed for every aspect of his self, convinced that he deserved it. Even as he told Snape everything that he could, begged the man to let him stay at Hogwarts, go to an orphanage, go anywhere other than the Dursleys, Harry was sure that nothing will happen.s

_He won’t believe me. He won’t care._

And worse yet, the thought that Snape would believe him, but that it wouldn’t matter, because Harry hadn’t suffered _enough._ He wasn’t whipped on a daily basis. He had never been hospitalized. He hadn’t died from what the Dursleys had done to him. On the whole, he was fine.

When he finally looked up from his confessions, he met Snape’s eyes, saw the dark anger roiling behind them, and flinched backward.

“I’m sorry,” he squeaked. “Nevermind. Forget it.”

“I cannot forget, Harry, nor do I want to,” Snape said softly. “I am not angry at you, child. I am angry at what your family has done to you. I am angry that other adults placed you there. I am angry that you were afraid to tell me, and I am angry that you still feel as though you deserve some part of what was done to you. You do not.”

Those words become a mantra for Harry through the years, a sermon of righteous anger that he holds tight to himself when the nightmares, the flashbacks, and the lingering urge to hide away resurge inside of him.

* * *

In the graveyard, when Peter slices into Harry’s arm, Harry mentally adds the wound to his collection of scars. He knows it will not heal and disappear; he does not want it to. He remembers Snape’s righteous anger, and feels it bubble up inside himself. He does not want to forget this.

Voldemort returns, and Harry forgets all his anger when the pale, snakelike man presses his finger to Harry’s forehead. The pain is all-consuming. He can’t remember anything else—not Ron, not Hermione, not Snape. Not the rush of flying, the joy of playing with his friends, the thrill of sneaking through the castle at night. It all disappears, and he is left with the agonizing truth that pain is all he is made for.

And then it is gone, and Harry barely has enough time to remember his Occlumency barriers before the Dark Lord is rifling through his memories, searching for anything he can use against him.

There is nothing. Snape has taught him well. All Voldemort can see is a long stretch of beach, decoy shells revealing hermit crabs and small memories of his friends, his classes. The worst that Voldemort sees are the memories of the Dursleys, carefully chosen to represent a wide array of years that could be interpreted as if Harry is still living with them.

It works, and after a short duel and a quick visit with his parents— _hi Mum, hi Dad—_ Harry summons the cup and slams to the ground at the front of the maze.

Moody gets to him before Snape can, but that’s soon remedied. When Dumbledore breaks down the door to Moody’s office, it’s all Harry can do not to reach out for Snape, who stands behind the headmaster looking as manic and desperate as Harry feels. Snape is firm and warm and safe, and Harry is crumbling into piece by broken piece as the world grows dizzy around him.

Snape doesn’t let Dumbledore interrogate Harry that night. Instead, he whisks him to the hospital wing where Madame Pomfrey cleans and salves his wounds, knits back together the parts of his skin that had been ripped open, and gives him a heavy dose of Dreamless Sleep. Snape stays by his side until he falls asleep, clasping his hand firmly and monitoring for residual effects of the Cruciatus.

When Harry sleeps that night, he dreams of his mother and father. They smile at him, soft and sweet. Lily’s eyes are sad, but she hugs him with a warmth that almost feels real.

“I love you,” she says strongly. “I love you so much.”

“I’m sorry,” he says weakly. He wants to apologize for forgetting about them as much as he has, for not thinking of them every day. For letting himself think of Snape as _dad,_ even though he’s never said the word out loud.

“Don’t be,” James says, clasping Harry’s shoulder. “We are so glad, so grateful, that you have found a home. Never apologize for that.”

The dream fades away as quickly as it arrived, and Harry only has time to wonder how he managed to dream despite taking Dreamless Sleep before blank unconsciousness swallows him back up.

* * *

Because Voldemort is back, Snape spends a lot of time away from the ocean. He relocates some of his books and furniture to Spinner’s End, enough so that it is believably a home for him and not a decoy residence, and alternates his time at the ocean, at Spinner’s End, at the Phoenix headquarters, and at Death Eater meetings. Harry doesn’t know how Snape manages it all and tries his best to stay out of the way and helps out however he can. He makes tea, sorts potions ingredients, cooks lunch and dinner on the days Snape is actually home, and has all his homework finished in a month.

“Harry, you have to slow down,” Snape tells him over dinner. “You can’t do it all.”

“Hark who’s talking,” Harry snaps back. “When’s the last time you slept more than three hours?”

Snape doesn’t bother responding to this, but makes sure Harry spends at least an hour a day on the beach being a dumb, lazy teenager.

* * *

Umbridge is properly evil. Snape is busy pretending to also be properly evil. Voldemort is stronger than Harry’s Occlumency at night and sends Harry a lot of emotions that he’s too tired to unpack.

In the tiny bits of free time that Harry finds between running a secret defense organization and getting his hand split open during detentions, Harry kisses a boy for the first time in his life. Draco is warmer, softer than he ever expected, and after they kiss, they don’t talk for a week.

“Stop avoiding me,” Harry hisses at Draco during Binns’ class.

“I’m sitting right next to you, Potter,” Draco hisses back.

Harry glares. “You know what I mean.”

Draco stares at him, calculating. Finally, he relents. “Tonight,” he whispers. “The dungeons, past the portrait of the half-dead merman.”

They share some bitter words about Draco’s father, wizarding expectations, the fact that Draco is supposed to hate everything Harry represents, and the understanding that Umbridge can and will report anything she sees to Lucius.

“We just won’t get caught, then,” Harry says confidently.

“You’re the worst Slytherin I’ve ever met, Potter.”

They sneak around as best they can, which is quite easy when they share a dorm, Harry has an invisibility cloak, and Draco is a prefect who has Umbridge’s full support and admiration. The prefect’s bathroom is the perfect place to hide from the rest of the school and be honest about how crazy the world is.

When Harry starts the DA with Ron and Hermione, he makes sure he takes a night each week to teach Draco what they’ve been studying. Draco refuses to attend the actual meetings because if they were ever to be caught, his father would kill him.

“Like, literally kill me, Potter,” he says when Harry scoffs. They have a long discussion about parental abuse and the ways in which it is terrible, and then Draco has a rather one-sided discussion about parental abuse and the ways in which Harry is not to do anything about it. _No,_ he cannot go to Snape. _No,_ he cannot kill Lucius with his bare hands. _No,_ he cannot ferret Draco away to the ocean for the rest of his life.

They share the mental and physical scars that they’ve earned in their fifteen years of life, and they come away stronger for their honesty. And when the DA is caught, Harry can’t help but breathe out a sigh of relief in the midst of all the chaos that he hadn’t forced Draco to join, because he’s safe, he’s okay, he’s not hurt.

Dumbledore leaves, and although Harry doesn’t share a whole lot of love for the man, the school goes to hell in a handbasket without him. Harry doesn’t feel like doing much of anything anymore; without the DA and with Draco having to spend more and more time pretending to be a member of the stupid Inquisitorial Squad, he feels more isolated than ever. His eating habits regress to those of little firstie Harry who never knew what it was to be properly fed, his sleeping schedule disintegrates into nightmares and insomnia, his homework dips until he has detentions not just from Umbridge but from Snape and McGonagall too. The detentions with Umbridge are hell because she’s evil and a bastard, the ones with McGonagall are guilt-inducing because she just looks at him mournfully and talks about how he’ll never be an auror with his scores (as if he even wants to be an auror anymore, he’s had enough of death and violence and blood), but the ones with Snape are good because Snape is, well, Snape.

He always has a little platter of snack food for Harry to mindlessly munch on—carrots and grapes and small crackers—and lets Harry sit by the fire and work for a few hours. Sometimes Harry does his homework, but for the most part he just reads or naps. If he falls asleep, he wakes to a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. If he stays late enough, Snape cooks dinner, a lighter fare than what the kitchens produce.

Those are his favorite nights, but Snape forbids him from intentionally destroying his potions to get more detentions.

And then OWLS come along, and Harry has a horrible dream, and Ron and Ginny and Hermione help him sneak into Umbridge’s office to double check that Sirius isn’t in the Department of Mysteries being tortured. And there’s a bit of a role reversal because along comes Umbridge and her Inquisitorial Squad, and then it’s Harry being tortured.

“I have asked you to be honest, Mr. Potter,” Umbridge says nastily, “and you have been recalcitrant and obstinate. I have no choice but to retrieve the answers from you in any way possible. I regret that it has come to this.”

Before anyone can do anything, Umbridge pulls out her wand, points it directly between Harry’s eyes, and cries, “ _Crucio!_ ”

It doesn’t feel as bad as in the graveyard—what a feat it would be for Umbridge to be as powerful as Voldemort—but that doesn’t make the pain any less distracting. The pain is molten lava and his body is ice, and he feels like every part of himself is rupturing and splintering as he howls on the floor of Umbridge’s office. He feels like broken glass, big shards and tiny pricks, sliding underneath his skin and peeling him apart.

Someone who is not him is yelling, and then the curse vanishes as suddenly as it began. And Draco is kneeling at his feet, his hair disheveled and his eyes frantic, murmuring _Harry, Harry,_ until Harry’s eyes focus properly and concentrate on his face, and they are both crying. Umbridge is solidly unconscious; Draco knocked her out. Together, Harry’s friends and Draco apprehend the rest of the Inquisitorial Squad before they can do any more damage.

Harry is trembling with nerve damage and panic and desperation. They use Umbridge’s Floo to get to the Ministry. Draco stays behind to get Snape and alert the order. Harry can hardly breathe or stand but he’s determined to find his godfather. He doesn’t want another death on his hands.

Sirius dies anyway.

Dumbledore tells Harry the prophecy that Snape had already told him months before, one cool summer night with mosquitoes and gentle candlelight against the stars. Ron, Ginny, Hermione, and Luna are all sent to the hospital wing and Harry has to live with the guilt. Harry ends fifth year with another scar to live with for the rest of his life, but Umbridge failed to teach him his lesson because now more than ever he knows that lies are sometimes very, very important. Like _Draco Malfoy is a blood purist and wanna-be death eater._ Like _Severus Snapes hates Harry Potter and did not spend the night by his bedside for the nth-teenth time, clasping his hand and smoothing away the worries from his forehead._ Like _Harry Potter is okay and doing fine and he is strong enough to handle whatever comes next._

* * *

The summer before sixth year is a mess. Harry spends most of it dissociating, or occluding, or whatever Snape wants to call it. Remus comes to visit once, because Snape is desperate enough to invite the wolf to his home, his _private_ home, but all it does is make all three of them feel guilty and worse.

Draco doesn’t write Harry once, and Harry understands.

He gets his OWLS. Few of his marks are good enough to qualify for Auror-track, and Harry is relieved. He won’t have to pretend that’s what he wants to be anymore. He’s not sure he wants to be anything at all.

“Maybe I’ll just work in the Muggle world,” Harry says absently. “I think their employee protections are slightly better, anyways. I could work at a bookstore.”

“They have bookstores here, too,” Snape says. “But as long as you’re happy, I don’t mind.”

That’s such a bold statement from a man most believe to be a blood purist that Harry has to blink for a moment.

“Thank you,” he says finally. And then: “If worse comes to worse, I’ll just be Draco’s trophy husband.”

He lays on the beach when Snape kicks him out the house, and listens to the waves fall in around him. In and out. In and out. He wishes life was that easy. He wants to escape from his body, from his life. He wants to start over, or to end it all and be done. He wants out.

* * *

Harry follows Zabini back to Draco’s compartment on the train. Draco waves his friends ahead and once the coast is clear, calls for Harry. He slips off the invisibility cloak, jumps down from the luggage space, and hugs Draco as tight as he can.

“I missed you,” Draco whispers into his shoulder, and Harry murmurs it back.

Draco is trembling and afraid, pale-faced and shaken up. He leans on Harry as if he wouldn’t be able to stand on his own, and Harry thinks _I will hold you up for as long as you need._

Then Draco shows Harry his arm, the dark raised skin where the Dark Lord has branded him. Draco flinches as Harry traces it, but neither of them pulls away.

“I’m sorry,” they whisper at the same time.

Harry chuckles, awkward. Draco folds down his sleeve. Harry clasps their hands together and clumsily kisses Draco’s knuckles.

“It doesn’t change anything,” he tells Draco. “I understand. I know who you are. This doesn’t change that.”

He thinks of Snape, too. His two favorite people, both branded by the same man who killed his parents. Their bodies and lives intertwined, tangling around the common figure of Voldemort. It’s not fair, it’s not safe, it’s not right. The anger rushes through him but it’s blanketed by despair.

Harry traces the dark blue circles under Draco’s eyes, kisses him once more.

And then they are separating, jumping the train before it leaves, and running to catch up with the flock of students.

That year, Dumbledore shows Harry memories of Voldemort as a child, as a young adult. Harry cannot bring himself to be thankful for living with the Dursleys, but he does feel sorry for the way the world treated Tom Riddle.

“If he had been loved, he might’ve been different,” he tells Ron and Hermione.

“But look at you,” Hermione points out. “You didn’t grow up loved, not for most of it, but you’re still good.”

Harry’s not so sure he _is_ good. He’s not so sure that his childhood hasn’t damaged him irredeemably, but he doesn’t say that.

He hates feeling sorry for Tom Riddle, and he hates feeling sorry for himself.

And he hates the feeling that Dumbledore and Snape and Draco are all lying to him in one way or another, that he’s being tugged along from all sides by the three of them.

* * *

Dumbledore finds a horcrux. He asks Harry to come along.

The seaside they apparate to is nothing like the ocean Harry is used to. The water is wild and angry, smashing against the jagged rocks, trying to destroy them. Harry, who has grown to feel safe with the water, at ease with its strength and its nature. But this ocean scares him, and when Dumbledore plunges into it without caution, he is reluctant to follow.

But still, he follows. They reach a cave, dark and dangerous. Harry can still hear the waves even inside the cavernous walls, and they match the rush of his blood, pounding in his head.

They take a boat. Harry feeds Dumbledore a potion against his will and feels the panic rising inside of his body. He wishes the roles were reversed, wishes more than anything that Dumbledore was the one forcing him to drink. That is how they had operated all his life, after all. Dumbledore forced him to live with the Dursleys, to protect the Sorcerer’s Stone, to kill the basilisk, to compete in the Triwizard Tournament. He forced him to play the role of the Boy Who Lived, to be someone he didn’t want to, and Harry had no choice but to drink his manipulations and platitudes. Now, Harry was in Dumbledore’s shoes, and he hated the feeling. He never wanted to have this power over someone again.

Dumbledore cries, and drinks, and screams. And then with a grating _clink,_ Harry scrapes the bottom of the basin and pulls out a heavy, ornate locket.

“It’s over, sir,” he gasps with relief. “We have it.”

They make their way—slowly, painfully—back to Hogsmeade, and find the sky illuminated green and hazy with the dark mark. Harry’s first thought, wild and desperate, is _Draco._

They fly to the astronomy tower, slower than Harry would like because Dumbledore is lagging, breathing ragged and eyes unfocused. Harry’s heart is beating rapidly in his skin; he can feel it pound through his wrists, his throat, his heart, his temple. _Draco._ He has to find Draco.

Dumbledore slides to the floor when they land.

“Severus,” he begs. “Please, get Severus.”

“Of course,” Harry says. “I’ll go right now. I’ll run, sir. It’s going to be okay. It’s—”

And then Draco is there, and Harry is frozen under his invisibility cloak, and Dumbledore is sagging further against the wall he’s propped against, a slight smile on his face.

The conversation Draco and Dumbledore have drives Harry to near insanity. All his will is focused on breaking free. If he can just move, just take one step, he can break the charm and punch Draco into oblivion. Then he can carry him away from the war and the stupid decisions that he makes like _bringing fucking Death Eaters into Hogwarts._

But he doesn’t break free, and he has to stand there and watch Draco cry, confess to Dumbledore that he has no hope of survival, that his family will die if he doesn’t kill. And Dumbledore says the same words that Harry is thinking. “Draco,” he says softly, as if he knows the words will break the poor boy’s heart, “You are not a killer.”

It is a cruel thing to learn that you will never be able to become what you most desperately need. The shock steals the remaining color from Draco’s face, and he, too, sags.

Forget punching. Harry will hug him first.

And then back-up arrives, Bellatrix and a group of other over-eager, half-demented Death Eaters that are hell-bent on watching Draco take a step into the future he desperately doesn’t want to take.

“I can’t!” Draco shouts over their goading, their jeers. “I can’t do it. I can’t. I’m sorry, I don’t want this anymore, I want out—” he’s babbling, sobbing. The words are spilling out and his face is messy with tears and snot and Harry has never loved him more, never wanted him safer, but it’s too late, because Bellatrix is snarling and pointing her wand and Harry _still_ can’t move, can’t breathe—

And then Snape whirls onto the tower as if he’s been summoned, his robes a storm behind him. He takes one look at the situation, casts a shield charm so powerful it pushes Bellatrix backwards into the Carrows behind her, and gestures to Draco.

Draco runs to stand behind him.

Snape looks around, as if he’s counting the people in the tower. His eyes linger on the two brooms.

And then he kills all the Death Eaters in sight.

“Severus,” Dumbledore whispers, soft and sweet and only a hint of pleading. “Severus, thank you. Severus, please.”

Snape meets Dumbledore’s eyes, and raises his wand. His hand is trembling.

“ _Avada Kedavra._ ”

It’s a whisper as soft as Dumbledore’s, but the air is so still that Harry can hear every syllable, every lisp and lilt to the words. It echoes in his ears far past the time it took to speak—over and over, stretching out into the space around them as Dumbledore is illuminated with a flash of green light. His death is uneventful. Where the Death Eaters crumpled violently as they died, Dumbledore merely closes his eyes and lets out one last, yearning sigh.

“We have to go,” Snape says to Draco. “The Death Eaters died during a skirmish. Do you hear me? They died. We saw nothing. You killed Dumbledore. Your family is safe. You will be rewarded.”

“I didn’t,” Draco babbles. “I didn’t, it was you, I didn’t, I di—”

“Shut up,” Snape snarls. “If I have to kill you, too, I will. Now leave. Flee. Find the others and go.”

Draco is still sobbing but with one last glance towards Dumbledore, he trips backwards and disappears down the stairs.

Snape stays. He breathes. He looks up, away from all the bodies, and into the sky. Even broken and glowing with the light of the dark mark, the night sky still looks oddly peaceful.

“Harry,” he says. It sounds like a question and a prayer all in one.

And then Harry can move. He hadn’t realized—had been too frozen by fear and panic and sorrow and rage to notice that the charms Dumbledore had cast had broken—but now his body is moving without his control, shaking and shuddering and falling to the ground. He’s gasping, desperately loud.

“Snape,” he says, feeling like an echo of Dumbledore’s words. “Snape, please.”

Snape feels for the cloak and sweeps it off him, then kneels to the ground.

“Do you still trust me?”

“I—.” What a question to ask. He can’t answer it, can’t say anything.

“That’s good enough,” Snape says, assessing him like he’s a butchered hash of potions ingredients. “You shouldn’t. You never should have.”

“I—Snape, what…”

“I have to leave. There’s not much time. Did you retrieve what Dumbledore was searching for?”

“Yes, I—in his pocket. A locket.” Sentences are too difficult, too energy consuming. The world is spinning, and Harry squeezes his eyes shut, rocking forward as he breathes.

“Good.” The sheer relief in Snape’s voice is enough.

“Will you be safe?” he asks.

Snape’s breath hilts, and then he’s leaning his head against Harry’s own, forehead to forehead. “I will try,” he says, and Harry flashes back to summers on the beach, a conversation long ago.

“I need you to make me do my homework,” he says, “and teach me laundry charms. I need you to share your favorite books with me and cook dinners and talk to me after my nightmares. I need you, Snape. Please. You can’t just leave.”

Snape clasps the back of Harry’s neck and then pulls away.

“I will try,” he says again. “That’s all I can promise.”

Harry stares blankly up at him, where he’s standing by the archway. Snape opens his mouth as if to speak, and then closes it again. He turns, and disappears down the stairwell, leaving Harry in a graveyard under the stars.

* * *

Harry doesn’t understand how everyone else is forming the connection between Snape and evilness.

“You said you saw him kill Dumbledore,” McGonagall says for the twelfth time in the hospital wing. They’re all loosely assembled around Bill Weasley, who was half-mauled by Fenrir Greyback and is now under the firm and absolute protection of both Fleur and Molly.

“Yes,” Harry says. “He cast _Avada Kedavra_.”

“So he betrayed us,” McGonagall says.

“No,” Harry says. “He killed the Death Eaters, too.”

“So he betrayed everyone.”

“No. Can we drop it?” Harry is tired. And also he’s just lost his stand-in father figure and his almost-maybe boyfriend slash love of his life, both of whom his friends and allies are convinced are evil, neither of whom actually are. It’s very confusing and he half-wishes he was as unconscious as Bill is.

He takes that back. He’s not that callous.

Somewhere in between Snape disappearing, the Death Eaters escaping, and being taken to the Hospital Wing by a rather subdued Ginny Weasley, Harry retrieved the locket from Dumbledore’s pockets. Stealing from the dead is probably cursed, but Harry doesn’t have the time or emotional capacity to be bothered.

To top off the worst night ever, when he pulls the locket out to show Ron and Hermione, they realize it’s a fake.

* * *

One morning during their first summer together, Snape took Harry to an optometrist.

“I don’t need new glasses, sir,” Harry said desperately. “I’m fine, really. I can see well enough.”

“Define _well enough,_ Mr. Potter,” Snape said, adopting his professor-quizzing-a-dumbass-firstie voice and staring down his nose at Harry.

“Er, well. I can see you. And I don’t trip over things. And it doesn’t cause any issues.”

“Not good enough.”

Harry argued back, or tried to, but Snape refused to be budged. He didn’t even get angry and snap at Harry for being stubborn or annoying. He just accepted all of Harry’s arguments and Flooed him along to Oracle’s Optometry, a small storefront that was definitely in England based on the accents but otherwise located in void space for all that Harry knew about it.

Oracle was a kind and gentle woman with dark skin and long braids. Her smile was gap-toothed and she looked at Harry not like he was some famous orphan but like he was just another kid. Harry liked her very much, especially because she didn’t tut or complain about his poor eyesight like Madame Pomfrey or someone else would have. And then she helped him pick out frames—three pairs, not just one, so that he would have spares—and didn’t even mind that it took him so long to choose.

“The longer you take, the more sure you’ll be,” she said cheerfully. “Take your time, honey. Don’t be bothered.”

Harry spared a nervous glance at Snape, who just nodded and resumed flipping through a magazine that said _Highlights_ on the cover. Harry could tell he wasn’t really reading any articles, but he appreciated the pretense of distraction anyway.

Harry had never been able to really choose anything before. He’d grown up with hand-me-downs and discards, the unwanted bits of everything. He wasn’t even sure where his first glasses had come from—they’d just shown up one day after one of his teachers had noticed he couldn’t read the board and had phoned Petunia.

So the prospect of choosing his own frames was daunting. And the prospect of either Snape or Oracle deciding he’d taken long enough and didn’t deserve new glasses was even more fear-inducing.

But they were patient, and kind, and he left with three new pairs of glasses that Oracle said were very stylish and accentuated his features. Snape just sniffed, said “Well done,” and paid.

Over the years, Snape bought all sorts of things for him. Winter coats, scarves, and gloves. Quilts for his bed. Books that he didn’t even ask for—Snape would just see him looking at them in the bookstore and snatch them up before Harry could say anything. He seemed to always know when Harry wanted something, and never made a fuss about Harry paying for his stay or being too needy.

Harry would have cleaned, though. He would’ve cooked and gardened and hidden away in his bedroom if Snape had told him to. Anything to live on the beach and be safe. But Snape never asked anything of him except that he be healthy and warm and safe, and Harry loved him for it.

* * *

It’s not a hard choice to leave Hogwarts. Without Dumbledore and Snape and Draco, Hogwarts means nothing. But it’s a hard choice to accept that Ron and Hermione are leaving, too.

“We’re going with you, Harry,” Hermione says.

“Course we are,” Ron says. “Be daft not to.”

Harry is very pleased and also very concerned that they will die, and it will be his fault just like always.

But they choose to leave. It’s not perfect—the Weasleys are all varying degrees of upset, and Hermione obliviates her parents which is not something Harry ever would have predicted—but it’s okay. It’s a choice. It’s something concrete to do.

That summer, he does several things to prepare for the coming year.

He doesn’t go back to the beach. For one, he isn’t old enough to get his Apparition license yet and doesn’t actually know where the house on stilts even is. _America, somewhere,_ isn’t enough for Floo or plane to work.

For another, he can’t bear the thought of being there without Snape. It wouldn’t feel right.

(And for a third, he’s terrified of what he’d do if he got there and _found_ Snape. He kind of doubts he’d ever have the strength to leave and go horcrux-hunting.)

So instead, he coops up in Grimmauld Place, long-abandoned except for Kreacher, and makes plans.

He gets a fake Muggle ID and starts taking driving lessons. Technically, Ron had already proven he could drive a car in second year, and Hermione learnt the summer before, but Harry thinks it will be useful if they can all drive and doesn’t want to be the odd one out.

He asks Bill Weasley to withdraw some funds from his bank account as Muggle cash and invests in a fake license and passport for Ron, too; Hermione already has legit ID. It’s not as if anyone from the ministry is going to bother tracking them with Muggle means. Muggle transportation, Muggle ID, are both safer than anything else they could think of.

(They still pack Wizarding tents, though, because those are a massive upgrade.)

Harry buys a rusty Vauxhall in Surrey before he leaves, and Hermione whips up some expanding charms so that, even though it’s not as spacious as the tent, they can set the tent up inside the back row of the car and crawl into it. Wizarding space inside Wizarding space. It’s a little confusing but they can hide out in the car for days on end.

Harry also buys a shitton of groceries. Kraft macaroni, ramen, cereal, granola bars. Canned soups and beans and veggies. He had a good ten years of going hungry with the Dursleys and even though Hogwarts and Snape have never let him starve, he still remembers what it’s like. He’s not taking the chance.

They wait until he turns seventeen, and then they disappear.

* * *

Even with a healthy stock of food, a reliable source of transportation, and a wealth of CDs ranging from Electric Light Orchestra to Whitney Houston, the horcruxes are still a bitch to find. Morale is overwhelmingly low, made ever worse by the news they get through filtered sources.

Snape is the headmaster of Hogwarts. Voldemort has taken over the ministry. Muggleborns are being hunted down. Everything is going to hell, and time feels like it’s running out.

Harry hangs the locket on the car’s rear-view mirror. It dangles in front of his vision as he drives, a constant reminder. He does his best to think about horcruxes during any spare moment, because if for a second he forgets to think about them then his heart is overwhelmed with _Draco, Snape, Draco, Snape, Draco,_ and he loses the ability to breathe.

“D’you think we could sneak into Hogwarts?” he asks Ron and Hermione for the fiftieth time one night.

“So you can snog your boyfriend? I’m good, thanks,” Ron says.

“Prat.” Harry throws a stale McDonald’s fry at him. “No. I mean, yes. He’s in danger. They all are. We could stop it.”

“We _will_ stop it,” Hermione says, like she always does. “By defeating the horcruxes. Harry, I know you’re scared. We all are. But we’re getting closer.”

And they are. The diary, the ring, the locket have all been destroyed. They have Helga Hufflepuff’s cup. They just need the snake and whatever else Voldemort put his soul into. Honestly, a cup? The man didn’t have much taste as far as Harry was concerned. He spent his teenage years in a bloody chamber under a lake talking to a giant snake, though, so he wasn’t exactly rational.

“The basilisk,” Harry says.

“What?”

“The basilisk,” he says again, this time more excited. “In the chamber! That’s how I destroyed the diary.”

“Yes, _and_?” Hermione says.

“Well, Snape and I never got around to going down there and pilfering potion’s ingredients. He always wanted to, but I think he was a bit scared and it just didn’t happen. So, well, there will be more fangs. Dozens of them.” 

“Oh!” Hermione says. “That’s brilliant. But it’s still way too dangerous.”

“But if it’s the only way, Harry’s got a point,” Ron says. “It’s all fucking dangerous these days.”

They struggle on for a few more weeks, but they’ve run out of places to look and they’ve all gotten sick and tired of listening “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” So after stopping at a Muggle shop and picking up some new albums—ABBA and Backstreet Boys—they drive on over to the nearest Muggle town to Hogsmeade. (Hogsmeade, unsurprisingly, is not connected to any of the motorways.)

They trek into Hogsmeade, meet Aberforth and learn more about Dumbledore’s family life, and have a grand time reuniting with the DA in the Room of Requirement.

And then they’re on the hunt—Ron and Hermione for the basilisk fangs, Harry and Luna for Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem—but of course nothing goes to plan.

The residents of the castle wake up—students and death eaters alike—and the last battle begins.

* * *

Even though his whole year—his whole life, really—has revolved around Voldemort, Harry doesn’t think about him too much. Instead, he thinks about Snape, who he sees striding briskly through the crowds of frightened students, casting nonverbal protective charms while still putting on the façade of dark and evil headmaster. He thinks about Draco, who he doesn’t see at all but wishes desperately he could. He thinks about Ron and Hermione, who have stood by him for so long he couldn’t imagine a day without talking to them, without seeing their faces. He thinks about Ginny, and Neville, and Blaise, and Theo, his friends who grew up with different ideologies and beliefs but who all unite in their common goal of teasing him and making him feel loved. He thinks about the Dursleys, and how little they understood about love, and how much he’s learned since he left them. Since he was given a real family, a real home.

And he thinks about his home more than anything. His bedroom, with its covered walls and big windows, his plush rug and thick quilts. The sitting room, with his chair and Snape’s chair facing the fireplace. The kitchen, stocked with so many spices Harry can’t even name them all, overflowing with mugs and teacups for every time of day. And the ocean, stretching out behind the windows, blending into the sky.

Harry has so much love to give in this world. He doesn’t really care about Voldemort, in the end.

Voldemort is his past, yes, and his present, but not his future. Never his future.

Which is why, when Voldemort sends him a vision of himself in the shrieking shack with Lucius Malfoy, Harry doesn’t really bother to care.

Until, that is, Voldemort asks for Snape. Then, he cares _very, very_ much.

“It’s a trap,” Hermione pleads. “The same as with Sirius. Oh, Harry, please can’t you see?”

“I don’t think it is, Hermione,” Harry says stubbornly. “No, listen. He doesn’t know I’ve been living with Snape. He might think Snape betrayed him, but he can’t know that I- that we- he doesn’t know. How can it be a trap?”

“Harry, please. Please just stay here. Voldemort knows you’ll do anything to save the people you care about. He’s playing you, Harry.”

But it’s not enough. Harry pulls away from his friends, slips on the invisibility cloak, and sneaks away to the shrieking shack, where he watches Nagini kill the closest thing he’s had to a father for the last 16 years.

Whether it was a trap or not doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is that Snape is dead, and Harry is alone.

_* * *_

_“I give you one hour, Harry Potter.”_

The words ring in his head long after they’ve been said. Voldemort is offering him a way out, and Harry is prepared to take it. No one else should have to die for him. And if he can take out a few more death eaters while he’s at it, then so be it.

Voldemort left the shrieking shack and is now in the forbidden forest beyond, waiting with his followers. All Harry has to do is die, and then everything will be over. He won’t have to hurt anymore.

As he walks to the forest, he remembers the first time Snape had taken him foraging. They’d walked through the forest side by side, Harry jogging to keep up with Snape’s long strides. The trees had stretched so tall back then, the sun filtering through in long strips of warm light.

Now, everything feels black and small. He can’t breathe, doesn’t have any reason _to_ breathe. It’s as if the oxygen is just filtering through his body on autopilot, his lungs no longer needed.

When he reaches the death eaters, he doesn’t wait. Removing his cloak, he presents himself to the man who has taken every beautiful thing from him, and submits to death.

* * *

Harry wakes up.

He’s in a white, empty space. There’s a rolling rush of waves somewhere in the distance, and he can smell the salty brine of the ocean, but everything is white and blinding.

Snape is there. A pillar of darkness in the white. He strides to meet Harry and folds him into a hug.

“Harry,” he says. “Harry.”

“I’m so sorry,” Harry says, and tears are rolling down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry you died.”

It sounds so stupid when he says it, but Snape doesn’t laugh. Instead, his hand on the back of Harry’s neck tightens, and Harry rests his head against Snape’s shoulder.

Snape tells him Dumbledore’s plans. He hadn’t known their full extent until it was too late, until Dumbledore was a portrait and couldn’t be killed twice over for his manipulations. Snape never wanted Harry to die.

“I was ready to,” Harry admits quietly. “It was time.”

“But it’s not,” Snape insists. “That’s Dumbledore’s real plan. He wants you to go back. He wants you to be everything they called you. The Chosen One.”

Harry thinks of what is waiting for him—dead bodies, broken hearts, dirt and bruises and war and endless days and nights, waves coming in and out. Wouldn’t it be easier to stop?

“Do I have to?”

“No,” Snape says. They’re sitting in the whiteness together, eyes closed to hear the phantom waves better. “No, Harry, but… I think you will, in the end. It is you who chooses, not them. Not him. Not me.”

Harry chooses.

All he wants is to let go, to leave, to fade into the waves. But he can’t, because Snape taught him how to value his life and even now, even in death, he can’t forget what it feels like to greet the sun over the water, to dig up wet soil on his hands and knees, to stand side by side with someone who loves him. 

“Will I ever see you again?”

“I don’t know. I’m not even quite sure how I arrived in this place. I was called here as much as you were.”

Harry spends one last moment looking at Snape. He remembers the first time he saw him, at the sorting in his first year. How scared he had been of the tall, sallow professor. With his long hair and fierce glare, his sharp features and sharper wit.

Now, all he sees is softness, warmth, and love.

Harry closes his eyes, and wakes up to a desperate Narcissa Malfoy and a world without his father.

* * *

After the war, after everything, Harry goes back to the ocean. He still doesn’t have a location, but he’s pretty sure Snape created a stable apparition point—a gnarled trunk sticking roots up in the sand, that’s been stuck there after all these years—and he’s desperate enough to try. All he thinks is _home_ , and then he’s there.

The salt hits him first, stinging his lips. Eyes closed, tears already falling freely, Harry stands against the wind and lets it cool his skin, his blood, his heart. There’s a storm rolling over the sky in the distance, far beyond the waves, and he breathes with the movement of it.

The house on stilts stands tall against the sky, a strange creature that looks as if it could stand, stretch, and slide away on its gangly legs.

Harry walks the creaking boardwalk to the house.

Every step brings forth another memory. Snape, waiting patiently for Harry to get home, soup simmering on the stovetop. Snape, tying his hair back as it blows in the wind. Snape, swearing violently after he stubs his toe on the loose board on the stairs, hopping on one foot and howling. Snape, asleep on the couch next to him, snoring, head lolling back, an empty teacup in his hands. Everywhere, everywhere, Snape.

He can’t breathe.

This is _home,_ but it’s not really, anymore. Not without Snape.

Harry reaches the door, fumbles with the key in the lock before sagging against the banister and, too weak to move his hands, unlocks it nonverbally. The door creaks on its hinges and swings open to a dusty floor, pale light streaming through open windows.

It looks the same, and different. Harry feels the same, and different.

He’d been hoping, praying, against all the facts, that he would come home to soup on the stove. To find Snape, hair up and cleaning to some disgusting garbage music on the record. To see Snape, eyes flashing with irritation, turning to the door as it opens, saying _you’re late, idiot._ Saying _it took you long enough._ Saying _obviously, I didn’t die, Potter. I’m not a self-sacrificial martyr._

Saying _welcome home._

But all he finds is a house full of books, feathers, and shells, walls covered in memories of a family long gone.

He can’t escape the feeling that he doesn’t belong there anymore. He doesn’t belong anywhere. Even with the windows closed, the curtains pulled, he can still hear the roll of the waves beyond, can feel them pulling him away, away, away.

He thinks about Ron and Hermione, who he almost left without saying goodbye during the last battle, and who he left once again to come here, to this cursed and miserable place. He thinks about Draco, who is recovering from a year of torture and lies and paranoia and who loves Harry desperately, who Harry loves desperately too. He thinks about Snape, dead, and Fred, dead, and Dobby, dead. He thinks about Voldemort, dead because of him. He thinks about his saving-people thing, and wishes he could have saved them all.

He thinks about the empty space where he last saw Snape, the cool rush of the waves, and he wonders if maybe the ones he lost during the war aren't so lost at all, just... somewhere else. 

He thinks he might take a walk along the beach, let his feet burn and tire against the sand, and let the waves pull him someplace else, too. Away, away, away from the house on stilts, and all the pain it holds. 

Or maybe he'll just sit here a while longer, listening to the distant roll of the ocean.

**Author's Note:**

> This was an idea I had that took root and wouldn't be let go of. I forced myself to make it as a oneshot so that I'd actually finish something for once in my life. Thanks for reading <3


End file.
